The Ancrum Cross Keys has been around a long time – just over 200 years according to the deeds of the property. And when you think about it, that works out at over 10,000 Saturday nights down the pub. Not bad going.

Such a village fixture has, of course, seen its fair share of owners, from now defunct breweries like Coldstream and Vaux, to joiners, tacksmen and even the occasional professional Inn Keeper.

A masonry sign installed by the Jedburgh Brewery

The place, however, has not always met with approval. We particularly salute the various local ministers who wrote about the ale houses of Ancrum in their 1841 Statistical Account of Roxburghshire, complaining that the “influence on the morals and cicumstances of those in their immediate neighbourhood, who are in the habit of frequenting them, is very injurious.”

Another passing writer was much more blunt: “I took up my lodgings that night in a small miserable inn in the village of Ancrum, of which people seemed alike poor and ignorant.”

We hope such a legenday place will continue to prosper for a further 200 years …